On the 23rd of October, I watched Girl Rising in the UC
auditorium. Wow, such a long time ago. Guess when there's so much going on you
put certain things off.
Girl Rising really, as I have taken it, is truly a movie
about showing the world that young women and girls around the world still
struggle to get the simplest education possible. While the film covers 9
different young ladies, I'll detail the case I found most interesting, Wadley.
When we are introduced to Wadley, she's pretty happy with her
schooling. Her life is in cramped corners, but she's motivated to go to the
school her mother works so hard to pay for. However, when the earthquake in
Haiti strikes, all is awry. We see her and her mother all right but the
neighborhood is not the same. It's a city full of tent houses. Her mother asks
her to retrieve water every day and Wadley wonders why she cannot got to
school. Why must she get water? Her mother says they cannot afford it, but
while on this water fetching trip she spots a tent where the school is holding
a class session. Wadley tries sitting in. However, the teacher, who was
Wadley's teacher before the earthquake, kicks her out. The next day, Wadley
returns, threatening to come back every day until the teacher lets her stay. It
is then that her assertion allows Wadley to sit in on class.
What would make a girl so motivated? I don't think she has
the foresight to know it may be good for her future, unless perhaps that's been
instilled in her. In fact, I think I'll go for that point. We didn't really see
much in detail how Wadley performed in school before the earthquake, except
that she was was able to recite a piece of literature much better than the rest
of the class. An activity such as this would correlate with a high
self-efficacy for Wadley, as she can perform the task well (Ormrod, 2011, 336).
This high self-efficacy, in my mind, lead her to develop some goals for herself
and to be persistent in attaining these goals, in that she's always tried hard,
so why not continue to try to develop those skills? In a way, her frame for success
is in school, whereas her other options seemed bleak.
What kind of parallels do you see between the girls in the film and girls in east Tennessee? How did male-normative attitudes shape some of the stories from the film? Does your learning theory account for the story of Wadley? If so, how, if not, what could be added?
ReplyDeleteAlthough the cases are certainly not as extreme as the general TN area, the girls featured in the film struggle to have their voices heard. They are abused and in many cases have to fight for any sort of education. These are the biggest corollaries I find between the girls in the film and TN girls, as in the same way, the female youth are more commonly abused (Jonah's lecture) and even though it's certainly improved, certain areas may have lower enrollment of girls because of "traditional" views.
DeleteWithin the film itself, the best way to explain male-normative attitudes was with the girl from India. She was essentially a slave and forced to live with an older man. She was forced away from her family at such a young age for a small amount of money. This kind of attitude, that women should not be educated, and simply used as tools for menial labor and pleasure, shaped many of the girl's stories, as they were unable to shape their own future because of these patriarchal perspectives.
If I were to correlate Wadley's story with my learning theory, constructivism, I believe I would need to more blatantly discuss prior knowledge. She's been in school, she knows it benefits her, and conceivably it helped her in her day to day life. Her teacher, although upfront about not allowing her to be in the school without payment, may have taught her to think for herself, for what she believes to be right. In this way, Wadley begins to think for herself, it is her job to learn what she needs to, with support from the teacher. Put simply, the teacher is providing the tools, presenting what Wadley needs to learn, Wadley takes what she needs to from those lessons and will then hopefully assist her mother survive.